GWOT V - Reunification Talks
Aug. 8th, 2019 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT 5 - Reunification Talks
I have been summoned to Las Vegas.
The battalion helicopter catches me working a field problem with 2nd Platoon. They are drilling, again, in preparing a hasty anti-armor defense.
One anti-tank crew per platoon is simply not enough. I have determined that everyone needs to be cross qualified as an anti-armor gunner, and this is a severe pain in the ass because we have no standardization at all.
None.
Some of our equipment is Russian bloc. Some of it is European, what is beginning to be called Pan-European but if you peel off the labels is French, Swedish, British and German. And some of it used to be American. We treasure Javelins when we can lay hold of them, they are the only long range ATGM with a prayer of taking out a Mexican main battle tank.
So having the helicopter land is an interruption and the order a nuisance; to get on board, dusty and dirty, and be flown to Barstow, then on a puddle jumper to Vegas.
But duty is duty. I turn the platoon over to its LT, the unit over to my XO and get on the chopper.
I literally don't have time to change, nor do I have a uniform to change into. I am literally chased across the tarmac at Barstow from the one aircraft to the other, which immediately takes off.
A crewwoman on the puddle jumper hands me an envelope. It is orders.
I recognize the signature of the Adjutant General of the California Republic. Not just my boss. My great grand boss. The head of the California Republic's Armed Forces, outranked only by the Governor.
I am ordered and directed to proceed to the Venetian Hotel "without the loss of a moment" and upon arrival "to take command of any California Republic Forces present" and "take into custody the notorious war criminal US Homeland General Batesman."
I read it carefully twice.
"Airman, hand me your radio."
I change frequencies and nets, and call my unit.
The RTO replies, puzzled. Only because we are airborne am I able to reach him at all.
"I need direct confirmation of written orders received. Send this on the encrypted datalink direct to Republic HQ in Sacramento, urgent priority. I need authentication for a change of mission."
The puzzled reply comes in mere minutes.
"Sir, I am ordered and directed to tell you an authentication. Seven one five three."
This matches the authenticator on the piece of paper.
"Pilot. What are your orders?"
"Fly you to Vegas."
"This is now a combat mission. I am taking operational command of this aircraft. I need you to prepare for a combat short landing."
"Sir?"
"You're going to land on the public street parallel to the Las Vegas Strip, behind the Venetian Hotel. You will not request permission to land or flight clearance. You and your crew will defend this aircraft, which is the soil of the California Republic, with force up to and including deadly force. I will dismount and return with a prisoner. You will then take off. Will you have fuel for a return flight to Barstow?"
"Maybe."
"Can you make Zzzyx?"
"Yes."
The pilot and both crew look at me as if I have lost my mind. So I pass around the letter.
"If I do not return within one hour, or it appears that overwhelming force will not permit you to take off, you will return to California territory and report the failure of my mission as soon as you have radio contact. I will be in custody or dead."
Soon enough the pilot must focus on what he's about to do.
When my cell phone gets coverage over Vegas, I call the Republic Consulate in Las Vegas.
It is a brief and tense call.
"This is Captain [18]. I need a callback, right this instant, life and death, from the head of the Talks security detachment. On your honor."
Thirty seconds later my phone rings.
"This is Colonel Hernandez."
"Colonel, Captain [18]. I have been given very unusual orders. Are you aware?"
"I have been ordered to take my orders from you, Captain, but not what they are."
Understandably he is pissed about it, too.
"We are going to combat land a puddle jumper behind the hotel. I need two of your people to meet me, preferably with a light vehicle, and take me directly to the talks. Are they in progress?"
"For another two hours, yes."
"I am evacuating a member of the delegation back to California. I expect that there will be a problem."
"Yeah."
"A big problem. A guns problem. Be ready for anything."
"Our whole delegation, or just one person?"
"Just one. But be ready to protect our delegation, and you may have to fight our way out of the city."
"Copy." He abruptly disconnects. As the head of the delegation he has contingency plans. But not for what I'm about to do.
When we land on the side street, it has been coned off by the heavily armed Venetian Hotel security. During the Firecracker, Vegas took some of her velvet gloves off and became a corporate feudal state. But still allowed thousands of prisoners to be processed through the city by Homeland.
A black SUV with California Republic flags and Nevada diplomatic plates awaits me. My face is clean thanks to a borrowed pack of baby wipes, but otherwise I am fresh from the field.
"To the talks. We interrupt them."
The diplomatic SUV has heavily tinted windows. So it's not obvious that it is carrying a full tactical team.
I introduce myself.
"This is an arrest. I am going to go into the Talks and I am going to personally, physically apprehend our target. You will then enter, lift and carry him with us back to this vehicle, then to the aircraft. This is your only mission until the aircraft takes off with the prisoner on board. This takes precedence over the protection of our delegation."
They nod grimly.
Escorted only by a single California Republic guardsman, I am shown into the hotel conference room.
The tables are arranged in a pentagon shape. There are five delegations: California, Nevada, Utah, Texas and America.
What I am about to do may restart the war.
I have my orders. They are authenticated.
I identify my target. He is sitting to the right of the American delegation. He is wearing the uniform of a US Army general with a Homeland tie pin.
I have my orders. That is the only reason that I do not immediately draw my pistol and shoot him dead.
"General Bateman!" I shout as I vault the California table. At a motion from Colonel Hernandez, all the California personnel, not just the security detail but also our diplomats, rush forward with me.
This catches everyone else utterly off guard.
The General freezes. He is just starting to stand up when I smash into him and put him into an arm bar, grinding his face into the plush carpet.
"Hands up, hands up!" our detachment is shouting, having sprouted a forest of pistols, submachine guns and even a rifle.
I zip tie the General's hands behind his back and as I do so, shout towards the ceiling.
"I arrest you in the name of the California Republic for genocide!"
The Utah and Arizona delegations draw weapons and retreat in tight knots from their tables, protecting their diplomatic staff from the breach of the peace I and my nation have committed.
The Nevada delegation is caught utterly flat footed. They have had the home field advantage. Their security detachment ... calls the police. They dare not draw, as we might shoot.
The American delegation carefully keeps their hands in the air.
They know that we will shoot and that their only hope of survival is not to even try to resist.
"This is an outrage," the American ambassador begins, to be interrupted by our ambassador.
"This IS an OUTRAGE," she screams in his face. "An OUTRAGE that your government brought THIS CRIMINAL, THIS BUTCHER, to these Talks!"
She is still screaming as the tactical team lifts General Bateman under his armpits and we rush out of the room.
Venetian Hotel security is standing there in numbers, with cradled rifles.
We rush through them as if they do not exist.
They do not shoot.
He is bundled into the SUV. He is looking around frantically, hyperventilating, starting to panic.
"I am an American..." he starts to say and I interrupt him by fisting him in the solar plexus.
"You are a war criminal, General, and I saw your handiwork with my own eyes," I hiss. "From San Diego to Redding, you turned my state into a charnel house of death! The only reason you are alive is because I have my orders! My only regret is that I am no longer Warden of Alviso Prison, because then I could give the order to hang you by the neck until you are dead, Dead, DEAD!"
He meets my eyes.
I have stared my own death in the eyes so many times. I have seen so many people die. Some of them fighting against that last dying of the light, some in so much pain they didn't know what was happening to them, some in so much pain they were grateful for it to maybe stop.
For the first time in his life, he is looking his own death in the eyes. My eyes.
The crotch of his trousers turns dark and there is a sudden sharp stink of ammonia.
The tac team has to drag him out of the car. A crowd is starting to gather. We spread out.
A single Las Vegas Police car drives up and the one officer gets out.
"What is this?" he asks mildly, muzzled by a dozen heavy guns.
"An arrest of a war criminal," I reply as he is bundled past. The cop's eyes widen.
General Bateman's fame precedes him.
I reach down to my radio.
"Take off right now," I order as I face the cop.
"I'm not going to do that. I'm the law here. You're guests and you're behaving badly. Everyone is going to stay right here until my sergeant gets here."
General Bateman is lifted aboard the plane, which immediately firewalls the engines.
"I wasn't talking to you, officer," I say without keying the radio.
The plane starts to roll.
The cop turns his head frantically.
"I of course have committed kidnapping," I say as I walk up close, too close. He pushes me back and then by instinct and training draws his firearm. Then pauses at low ready as he realizes that he is being muzzled by a dozen guns.
I raise my hands.
"I submit to your arrest, Officer," I shout as the plane rolls forward quickly, committed to take off. "I have committed a crime on your soil and I take full responsibility for my actions!"
I turn to the California Republic tac team.
"I have been arrested. I have no authority. Protect our delegation."
I draw my handgun slowly and give it to the nearest tac team member. She takes it gingerly.
Then the entire team heads back towards the ruins of the Talks.
The cop looks wonderingly at me, at the plane, at me again.
"I am not arresting you," he says slowly. He holsters and takes out a notepad and pen.
"What is your name, sir? For my report."
The plane banks towards California.
There is about a twenty minute window in which someone could scramble interceptors and force it down.
But it seems as though the cop has forgotten his radio.
Funny that.
I have been summoned to Las Vegas.
The battalion helicopter catches me working a field problem with 2nd Platoon. They are drilling, again, in preparing a hasty anti-armor defense.
One anti-tank crew per platoon is simply not enough. I have determined that everyone needs to be cross qualified as an anti-armor gunner, and this is a severe pain in the ass because we have no standardization at all.
None.
Some of our equipment is Russian bloc. Some of it is European, what is beginning to be called Pan-European but if you peel off the labels is French, Swedish, British and German. And some of it used to be American. We treasure Javelins when we can lay hold of them, they are the only long range ATGM with a prayer of taking out a Mexican main battle tank.
So having the helicopter land is an interruption and the order a nuisance; to get on board, dusty and dirty, and be flown to Barstow, then on a puddle jumper to Vegas.
But duty is duty. I turn the platoon over to its LT, the unit over to my XO and get on the chopper.
I literally don't have time to change, nor do I have a uniform to change into. I am literally chased across the tarmac at Barstow from the one aircraft to the other, which immediately takes off.
A crewwoman on the puddle jumper hands me an envelope. It is orders.
I recognize the signature of the Adjutant General of the California Republic. Not just my boss. My great grand boss. The head of the California Republic's Armed Forces, outranked only by the Governor.
I am ordered and directed to proceed to the Venetian Hotel "without the loss of a moment" and upon arrival "to take command of any California Republic Forces present" and "take into custody the notorious war criminal US Homeland General Batesman."
I read it carefully twice.
"Airman, hand me your radio."
I change frequencies and nets, and call my unit.
The RTO replies, puzzled. Only because we are airborne am I able to reach him at all.
"I need direct confirmation of written orders received. Send this on the encrypted datalink direct to Republic HQ in Sacramento, urgent priority. I need authentication for a change of mission."
The puzzled reply comes in mere minutes.
"Sir, I am ordered and directed to tell you an authentication. Seven one five three."
This matches the authenticator on the piece of paper.
"Pilot. What are your orders?"
"Fly you to Vegas."
"This is now a combat mission. I am taking operational command of this aircraft. I need you to prepare for a combat short landing."
"Sir?"
"You're going to land on the public street parallel to the Las Vegas Strip, behind the Venetian Hotel. You will not request permission to land or flight clearance. You and your crew will defend this aircraft, which is the soil of the California Republic, with force up to and including deadly force. I will dismount and return with a prisoner. You will then take off. Will you have fuel for a return flight to Barstow?"
"Maybe."
"Can you make Zzzyx?"
"Yes."
The pilot and both crew look at me as if I have lost my mind. So I pass around the letter.
"If I do not return within one hour, or it appears that overwhelming force will not permit you to take off, you will return to California territory and report the failure of my mission as soon as you have radio contact. I will be in custody or dead."
Soon enough the pilot must focus on what he's about to do.
When my cell phone gets coverage over Vegas, I call the Republic Consulate in Las Vegas.
It is a brief and tense call.
"This is Captain [18]. I need a callback, right this instant, life and death, from the head of the Talks security detachment. On your honor."
Thirty seconds later my phone rings.
"This is Colonel Hernandez."
"Colonel, Captain [18]. I have been given very unusual orders. Are you aware?"
"I have been ordered to take my orders from you, Captain, but not what they are."
Understandably he is pissed about it, too.
"We are going to combat land a puddle jumper behind the hotel. I need two of your people to meet me, preferably with a light vehicle, and take me directly to the talks. Are they in progress?"
"For another two hours, yes."
"I am evacuating a member of the delegation back to California. I expect that there will be a problem."
"Yeah."
"A big problem. A guns problem. Be ready for anything."
"Our whole delegation, or just one person?"
"Just one. But be ready to protect our delegation, and you may have to fight our way out of the city."
"Copy." He abruptly disconnects. As the head of the delegation he has contingency plans. But not for what I'm about to do.
When we land on the side street, it has been coned off by the heavily armed Venetian Hotel security. During the Firecracker, Vegas took some of her velvet gloves off and became a corporate feudal state. But still allowed thousands of prisoners to be processed through the city by Homeland.
A black SUV with California Republic flags and Nevada diplomatic plates awaits me. My face is clean thanks to a borrowed pack of baby wipes, but otherwise I am fresh from the field.
"To the talks. We interrupt them."
The diplomatic SUV has heavily tinted windows. So it's not obvious that it is carrying a full tactical team.
I introduce myself.
"This is an arrest. I am going to go into the Talks and I am going to personally, physically apprehend our target. You will then enter, lift and carry him with us back to this vehicle, then to the aircraft. This is your only mission until the aircraft takes off with the prisoner on board. This takes precedence over the protection of our delegation."
They nod grimly.
Escorted only by a single California Republic guardsman, I am shown into the hotel conference room.
The tables are arranged in a pentagon shape. There are five delegations: California, Nevada, Utah, Texas and America.
What I am about to do may restart the war.
I have my orders. They are authenticated.
I identify my target. He is sitting to the right of the American delegation. He is wearing the uniform of a US Army general with a Homeland tie pin.
I have my orders. That is the only reason that I do not immediately draw my pistol and shoot him dead.
"General Bateman!" I shout as I vault the California table. At a motion from Colonel Hernandez, all the California personnel, not just the security detail but also our diplomats, rush forward with me.
This catches everyone else utterly off guard.
The General freezes. He is just starting to stand up when I smash into him and put him into an arm bar, grinding his face into the plush carpet.
"Hands up, hands up!" our detachment is shouting, having sprouted a forest of pistols, submachine guns and even a rifle.
I zip tie the General's hands behind his back and as I do so, shout towards the ceiling.
"I arrest you in the name of the California Republic for genocide!"
The Utah and Arizona delegations draw weapons and retreat in tight knots from their tables, protecting their diplomatic staff from the breach of the peace I and my nation have committed.
The Nevada delegation is caught utterly flat footed. They have had the home field advantage. Their security detachment ... calls the police. They dare not draw, as we might shoot.
The American delegation carefully keeps their hands in the air.
They know that we will shoot and that their only hope of survival is not to even try to resist.
"This is an outrage," the American ambassador begins, to be interrupted by our ambassador.
"This IS an OUTRAGE," she screams in his face. "An OUTRAGE that your government brought THIS CRIMINAL, THIS BUTCHER, to these Talks!"
She is still screaming as the tactical team lifts General Bateman under his armpits and we rush out of the room.
Venetian Hotel security is standing there in numbers, with cradled rifles.
We rush through them as if they do not exist.
They do not shoot.
He is bundled into the SUV. He is looking around frantically, hyperventilating, starting to panic.
"I am an American..." he starts to say and I interrupt him by fisting him in the solar plexus.
"You are a war criminal, General, and I saw your handiwork with my own eyes," I hiss. "From San Diego to Redding, you turned my state into a charnel house of death! The only reason you are alive is because I have my orders! My only regret is that I am no longer Warden of Alviso Prison, because then I could give the order to hang you by the neck until you are dead, Dead, DEAD!"
He meets my eyes.
I have stared my own death in the eyes so many times. I have seen so many people die. Some of them fighting against that last dying of the light, some in so much pain they didn't know what was happening to them, some in so much pain they were grateful for it to maybe stop.
For the first time in his life, he is looking his own death in the eyes. My eyes.
The crotch of his trousers turns dark and there is a sudden sharp stink of ammonia.
The tac team has to drag him out of the car. A crowd is starting to gather. We spread out.
A single Las Vegas Police car drives up and the one officer gets out.
"What is this?" he asks mildly, muzzled by a dozen heavy guns.
"An arrest of a war criminal," I reply as he is bundled past. The cop's eyes widen.
General Bateman's fame precedes him.
I reach down to my radio.
"Take off right now," I order as I face the cop.
"I'm not going to do that. I'm the law here. You're guests and you're behaving badly. Everyone is going to stay right here until my sergeant gets here."
General Bateman is lifted aboard the plane, which immediately firewalls the engines.
"I wasn't talking to you, officer," I say without keying the radio.
The plane starts to roll.
The cop turns his head frantically.
"I of course have committed kidnapping," I say as I walk up close, too close. He pushes me back and then by instinct and training draws his firearm. Then pauses at low ready as he realizes that he is being muzzled by a dozen guns.
I raise my hands.
"I submit to your arrest, Officer," I shout as the plane rolls forward quickly, committed to take off. "I have committed a crime on your soil and I take full responsibility for my actions!"
I turn to the California Republic tac team.
"I have been arrested. I have no authority. Protect our delegation."
I draw my handgun slowly and give it to the nearest tac team member. She takes it gingerly.
Then the entire team heads back towards the ruins of the Talks.
The cop looks wonderingly at me, at the plane, at me again.
"I am not arresting you," he says slowly. He holsters and takes out a notepad and pen.
"What is your name, sir? For my report."
The plane banks towards California.
There is about a twenty minute window in which someone could scramble interceptors and force it down.
But it seems as though the cop has forgotten his radio.
Funny that.
